the stars have never learned to say goodbye
by hoidn
Summary: The first time.


**AO3 tags:** Episode: s06e10 Goodbye Is Always Implied × Feelings × lots and lots of them × No Dialogue × What Was I Thinking? × Canon Compliant × in which the author attempts to make some linear sense × of a scene with odd editing choices × i really have no idea about the rating × should it be explicit? × i use the word cock a lot and there's no poultry in this fic so × You Decide × if you think i watched this scene at half speed many many times × and took notes × for research × you are correct × also this work contains some unforgivably long run-on sentences × Sorry Not Sorry

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Vic's stomach is a tight ball of nerves and happiness and desire. With one big hand on her hip, Walt pulls her to him and that single act of clear intent is the hottest thing any man has ever done to her. She wants to touch him all over but her hands don't know where to begin. They finally settle around his shoulders to steady her through this unfamiliar unsteadiness she's feeling. She licks into his vodka-flavoured mouth, heat blooming everywhere as his tongue strokes hers. The cabin is quiet enough for her to hear her own breathing, his, the rasp of fabric where their bodies shift and press together. Their hot, wet mouths push and pull at each other like waves or wind, like a conversation without words, until nothing but excitement fizzes in her blood.

Walt palms her ass with one hand and tugs at the tail of her shirt with the other until it pulls free of her jeans. Her back arches instinctively, pushing her hips harder against him. A tiny moan rises from her throat into the humid space between their mouths and he swallows it down. Highways of nerve endings light up as he sweeps his fingers slowly over the small of her back. Then both of his hands slip under her shirt to roam her waist, her sides, and Vic can't think. Her head is nothing but white noise and static. All she can do is keep kissing him and kissing him, running her hands along his jaw, his stubbled cheek, the back of his neck where the blunt ends of his hair spill over her fingers.

Holding her away from himself a little, Walt goes to work on the buttons of her duty shirt, but now that she's started, she can't stop touching him, can't settle in any one spot. She drags her hands as far down his arms as she can get inside his sleeves, then back up and over his shoulders and along his collar bones, splaying her fingers wide over his pectorals and slotting them in the spaces between his ribs. His skin is hot against hers, the hair on his chest unexpectedly soft. She has to pause to let him strip her shirt off, but her hands return eagerly to his waist, sliding around to the small of his back and then to his stomach, dipping into his bellybutton, but careful, so careful of his wound.

His mouth roves her neck, leaving little sucking kisses and gently scraping with his teeth. His breath ghosts warmly over her damp skin and all at once she's vibrantly aware of the life in him: his hammering heart, the air passing in and out of his lungs.

He's alive. They both are.

Overcome, Vic wraps her arms around him and hugs him fiercely, reassuring herself with the solid fact of his body. The hair on his chest tickles her nose as she breathes him in. It's been a long, demanding day and his scent is earthy, a little bitter, and so wonderfully familiar. Walt tucks his head down next to hers, hands spanning her back. They stand quietly for several pounding heartbeats just holding on to each other.

Both of them are so very alive.

She can feel the hard jut of his erection against her hip and she's aching already, wet and needy just from this handful of minutes. She turns her head a little to lick into the notch at the base of his throat where his swift blood pulses. He sucks in a sharp breath. Both of his hands slide down to grip her ass and he raises his head to look at her, eyes dark and serious, lips wet and red, and she feels a slap of heat because she's done this to him. She's brought him to this.

A long moment passes between them. Walt's eyes are the summer sky above her and she's lying in the grass falling up into all that blue. He takes her hands and puts them back on his shoulders, then reaches down and lifts her up as if it's easy, she weighs nothing, he hasn't just been stabbed. He's so incredibly matter-of-fact about it and she can't believe how sexy it is. Her legs wrap around his waist automatically, supporting herself as much as she can, and he walks them into the bedroom never taking his eyes off her. The tips of his lashes are the color of wheat, lighter than his hair and glinting as they catch the light. It seems impossible she's never noticed that before.

In the yellow glow of his bedroom, he drops her on the mattress and follows her down. He's a big man and she wants all of him, wants his weight and his strength pressing her to the bed so she doesn't just float away. Her hands move over his broad shoulders trying to get his shirt off but he's not cooperating. He keeps kissing her and kissing her, melting her will with the heat of his mouth. Their legs tangle, their boots drop mercifully to the floor, and now she can slide her toes under the hem of his jeans, wrap her thigh over his and pull him even closer. Her whole body aches with a hollow hunger: in her bones, under her skin; she needs to touch him everywhere, needs to feel him everywhere against her.

Vic sets her palms flat against his chest and he lets her push him until he's on his knees. Her fingers work frantically at his belt buckle while he strips off his shirt. She's almost pulled it free when one of his hands comes down to cover both of hers. For a beat Walt just looks at her with the weight of those serious eyes. Her heart stutters on the edge of fear—_does he want to stop now?_—but then he's leaning down, bracing himself over her again, his chest a solid wall of muscle and heat that sears everything else from her mind. She falls dizzily into his mouth, locking her legs around him to hold herself in place. Her hands settle on his back to roam the long, shifting muscles there, while her fingertips memorize the texture of as much of his skin as she can reach. She explores the ridges of his teeth with her tongue, sucks on the softness of his lips, revels in the yielding pressure and all their slippery points of friction.

Every inch of her body feels wild with tension, stretched too tight by all the dammed up yearning that's finally finding release. Walt slips his fingertips along her side, over her ribs, leaving trails of fire like meteors blazing across the sky. Heat radiates from him, from her, in the air they're sharing like a hothouse. They're muggy and damp, scented with the salty tang and slight sourness of sweat.

She opens her eyes to the column of his neck as he trails kisses out from her collar. Its ruddy flush curls down into the slightly paler skin of his shoulder. There's a small nick just under his jaw where he must have cut himself the last time he shaved. The unexpected vulnerability makes her heart race even harder. Vic turns her face to kiss the spot as a strange, achey sort of tenderness invades her rib cage. His thumb traces the lower curve of her bra, grazing the underside of her breast just as he closes his teeth gently around her earlobe, and _fuck._ It's barely anything; they've barely done anything at all but she's embarrassingly close to orgasm just the same.

This time when she pushes at his bulk to get free he complies immediately. She drags her tank top over her head and as soon as it's off he's on her again. The electric shock of his chest and belly pressing against hers makes her arch up off the mattress. Walt gasps into her mouth and burrows his hands beneath her back and hip, clutching her tighter. The friction makes her feel a little frantic and there are still miles of clothes between them. Her fingers clutch at the pillow above her, trying to find an anchor. Every touch feels amplified, rolling through her like thunder and resounding at a higher pitch, her skin pulled taut as a drum.

They shift against each other, kissing messily, with the gentle susurration of denim an underscore to their breathing. His hair is so thick and soft, grown out a little since the last time he had it cut. Vic tunnels her fingers through it to feel the shape of his skull; she strokes the tender skin behind his ears. His lips are never still — they move restlessly on her throat, her jaw, her shoulder, then down her chest so he can lick at the tops of her breasts, just above the line of her bra. Her lower body rubs insistently against his of its own accord like a separate, untamed animal.

He's so quiet; the night is so quiet; but her body feels loud. She's lost her voice, lost words entirely, has only breath, as if all the sound inside her is trapped in her chest and her pelvis, pushing up and out, demanding to be heard some other way. She digs her fingers into his back, gripping his shoulder blades like a safety bar while she careens out of control. He's so intent, so calm, can't possibly feel the same perilous need she's feeling. She doesn't want him to stop but she doesn't want to be alone in this havoc, wants him to burn, too: with her, for her.

They need to be much more naked than they are.

Trying to twist her arms beneath her doesn't work. She rears up and Walt gets it without asking. His hands reach where hers can't but it's still awkward. She rolls to her side to let him unfasten her bra and it's not a sexy or romantic move at all, yet somehow it is. There's something about the fact that it's Walt doing this practical, mundane thing for her with the same care he does everything else. She knows the exact expression he's wearing without looking; she knows _him_.

He begins to slide one strap down her arm in an unhurried way, but it's too slow; there's no time for that now. Patience has never been a virtue Vic's possessed in any quantity and she's waited too long for this already. She pulls the whole thing off and tosses it to the floor.

When she turns to him he's looking at her as though she's something he can't quite believe in. He trails the backs of his fingers down the center of her chest, feather light, and that's all it takes for her nipples to harden almost painfully. His touch glances along her ribs and then curves gently over her breast but his gaze doesn't waver from her face. A strange kind of weakness floods her. Too many huge feelings jostle for space in her chest and the distance of inches feels unbearable. She has to reach up to bring him back down, to have him with her, not looking from afar.

Walt braces himself on both arms and _finally_ they're pressed together, just skin on skin from the waist up. Hot and real, it awakens some deep craving within her. The keen edge of it almost hurts, sending sharp pangs through the bowl of her pelvis that flare up like wildfires. His warm, heavy hand returns to her breast; the pads of his fingers flex and press into her flesh while his palm rasps lightly over her tight nipple and sends out radiating sparks. Vic's arms slip uselessly to the mattress and all she can do is feel him touch her, her muscles turned leaden and syrupy, just paralyzed by how good it feels as his soft, hot mouth consumes hers.

She's feverish, burning up inside her jeans, constricted and cut off from the rest of him. It's a languid eternity before she can force her hands into motion. One rises up to his neck, his cheek, and the other slips into the gap at the waist of his jeans, strokes the sensitive skin of his lower belly. Her knuckles barely brush the stiff ridge beneath his underwear but he breaks from her mouth with a low groan, his eyes dark, dark and blue.

Slowly, he pushes himself away. The loss of his body makes her want to grab him and drag him back. Up on his knees, he watches her watching him as he pulls his belt free. The sound of the leather sliding through the loops makes her shiver. Her eyes are drawn to the lines of his hips revealed by his loosened jeans. She has a vague idea of licking him there, biting at the dip of his flesh over the bone, but all she can do is stare. She's never been passive this way before but Walt won't stop _looking_ at her, like he's afraid she'll vanish if he's not watching. It takes everything she has to withstand the openness of his gaze and the way it makes her feel: a nakedness that goes deeper than just the absence of her clothes.

Dropping his belt to the floor with a muted clink, he leans forward again and undoes the button on her jeans, then the zipper. Vic lifts her hips to let him pull them off, feeling the denim slide down her legs like a caress. She's left in nothing but plain cotton underwear and white socks. It's not exactly a sexy outfit but he takes her in as though transfixed. He licks his lips and his whole chest expands with the force of the breath he inhales. Her pulse skitters wildly. Gone is the usual surge of power she feels at leaving a man slack-jawed, but none of this is usual and she can't seem to find her bearings at all.

Walt slips all the way off the bed and removes her socks one at a time. It's not something she's ever thought could be erotic, but he cradles each foot in his palm and when he kisses the little knob of her ankle open-mouthed and wet the overwhelming intimacy of it makes her whole body shudder. Her hands fist into the sheet underneath her as he trails a hot line of kisses up the inside of her leg, his fingertips skimming her bare skin as if he's afraid to really touch her. When he kisses the scar on her thigh, Vic has the sudden thought that this might be easier if they didn't know each other so well, if the weight of all their history wasn't hovering above them. Her hand passes from his shoulder and down to his bicep where she can feel the softened ridge of his own scar from Chance Gilbert.

They're a set now, she and Walt, with their matching damage.

He raises his head and eases away slowly until he's half-standing, half-kneeling on the edge of the mattress, just looking down at her again, and suddenly she can't bear it. The ache of not touching him cramps up her stomach and galvanizes her into motion. She climbs to her knees to meet him at the end of the bed. Even like this he's taller than her but some of the distance has been erased. The wound on his belly is an angry red, like a stop sign, and Vic wonders if they should really be doing this. But it hasn't begun bleeding again and Walt knows his own strength. She bends to place a gentle kiss next to the puckered flesh, feels the shaky breath he inhales.

His skin is hot and salty under her mouth. She nuzzles a path up his chest to his neck, as his fingers run lightly across her shoulders and into her hair. He touches her ear, her jaw, her chin, drawing her closer and lifting her head. She kisses him recklessly, as though she can make up for every second of every day she wanted to touch him and couldn't, for all the holding back and holding back. He cups her ass with both hands, squeezing and pulling her closer against him, and she can't swallow the needy sound that billows up into her throat.

He slips three fingers beneath the elastic leg of her underwear, hooks his thumbs into the waistband, and she clutches his shoulders, her breath hitching. He pulls down, down, slowly, deliberately, and if she'd needed to be seduced this would do it, just his measured movements and the way he's barely touching her, as if he's still giving her space to change her mind. It's absurdly exciting. Her forehead pushes hard against his collar bone and her toes are actually curling. She's squeezing them hard, trying to grip on nothing. Walt kisses her shoulder, her neck, her ear. His hand is warm on her bare hip and her underwear puddles around her knees and she's waiting for him to do something, the muscles in her thighs are actually trembling, but he just keeps kissing wherever he can reach, his hands secure on her but unmoving.

She can't stand it.

Lifting her head a little, Vic reaches for his fly. That finally spurs him to action. He blocks her hands and she feels an irrational burst of anger—_is he ever planning on taking off his fucking pants?_—but almost before the thought has formed he's undoing the button himself, then the zipper, while she watches down the length of his torso, her forehead resting on his chest. He pauses with his hands holding the open waist. For all her impatience just a moment ago, she's oddly glad for the pause, for the chance to take one last breath.

She looks up and meets his eyes. The expression on his face is so unguarded it steals her breath all over again. This isn't shyness or hesitance; this is an offering of himself, an honest baring of desire that's hers to accept or refuse. Vic slides her hands along his forearms and kisses him in a silent, fierce _yes._ She lets her fingers curl loosely around his wrists so she can feel the motion as he pushes at his clothes, so that this is something they're doing together.

They're still kissing when he turns his hands under hers and pulls her closer. They're still kissing when she feels his cock graze her belly, hot and silky on her skin. Walt sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. Thousands of butterflies erupt from their cocoons and careen around inside her stomach. She eases back down so that she's sitting again. Without taking her eyes from his, she wriggles her underwear all the way off and drops them on the floor. Only then does she look at him fully as he stands before her, taking him in.

Vic's already seen him all but naked once but this is something else entirely. Her eyes follow the lines of his shoulders down his arms to his hands, then rise again to trace his collar bones and watch the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows. She studies his chest, the small nipples almost entirely covered by hair, the softness below his ribs, and the scars he'd displayed to her so willingly. Then the bones of his hips, his pelvis, the wiry hair at his groin, and his cock rising full and thick from between his thighs.

A single hot, resonating throb low in her pelvis sets off an avalanche inside her. She's always been attracted to the power of his body and what he can do with it, how at ease he is in himself. But now, standing before her naked and aroused, he's gorgeous.

Her mouth fills with saliva.

She meets his eyes again and he looks so open, watching her, so vulnerable it makes her throat ache. She wants to tell him that she knows him: the lines carved into him by time and pain, his scars, his muscle and bone; wants to tell him that he's beautiful to her and so very precious. The words refuse to come, so she does her best to smile. She reaches out and takes his hand, tugging him toward her as she sinks flat onto the bed.

Walt crawls back up over her, and she's never been more aware of how much larger than her he is. He seems enormous, a Titan bent on tender destruction; she welcomes obliteration with her arms and her eyes wide open. At her ribs he lowers his head to drop soft, wet kisses on his ascent. He bathes her nipples with slow sweeps of his tongue until her body is nothing but arch and writhe. She's imagined this an embarrassing number of times: his hands, his mouth, on her, everywhere, making her come over and over. And she wants that, she does, but right now it feels too separate; right now she needs to see his face.

Her hands course across his skin, ravenous and demanding. Pulling him higher, closer, until he's stretched the length of her body, all of him pressing against all of her. Pulling him until he's pushing inside her, thick and hot and devastating. She has to close her eyes because it's all just so _much_, too many senses to handle. They're very still, both of them, breathing raggedly. Feelings swamp her, like water closing over her head. She's desperate to move and she never wants to move, wants to live in this moment and share it with him for the rest of her life.

He begins slowly, rocking her like gently rippling waves, but it's more intense than anything she's felt before. Her body is deafening, as if someone's turned her volume all the way up. She hears herself making these faint, high-pitched sounds that are little more than air. Walt's touching her face, her throat and shoulders with light, trembling fingers, at times less touching her than sketching her shape in the air just beyond the borders of her skin. His breath is hot in her ear. She wants to turn her head and suck his fingers into her mouth but she can't move. It's like she's forgotten how sex works or how her body works or how to make it work. He kisses her hair, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, as though in comfort or reassurance, and his tenderness pierces her with a sweet pain.

Vic's never experienced sex like this before. The mechanics are the same but everything else is different. There's no first-time awkwardness, no getting used to one another. Their bodies already know each other well; only the context has changed. It's so good and she doesn't know what to do. This isn't her, this quiet, still creature. She's vocal during sex: she says what she wants; she takes the lead, doesn't just hold on and let it happen. She's never helpless, or scared, or confused; she never feels as if her chest might burst open from the force of what's beating in there.

Walt never stops touching her: with his hands, his mouth, his cheek pressed to hers. He's intent on her, so wholly invested, so patient and gentle. She can't catch her breath. Her emotions are fracturing, refracting, a kaleidoscope of sensation and feelings. She wants to cry, laugh, scream, fight. Her fingers grip his neck, his back. She arches her spine, trying to get closer, even though it's impossible; she's rocking with him, meeting him in counterpoint, feeling his big body shudder. He's a stubborn bulwark she can push against with all her force, knowing he won't break.

In the warm yellow glow of his bedroom they burn white-hot. He lifts his head to kiss her and the angle of his cock inside her sharpens. He makes a low, almost wounded noise, and the rhythm grows faster, harder. Suddenly they're straining at each other to occupy the same sweat-slick skin. It's a headlong flight, a desperate rush, every bit as hot and urgent as she's always imagined. Her hands shift and curl helplessly; she doesn't know what to do with them. Her skin prickles with cold, with heat, and she holds him to her with her thighs, her knees at his ribs digging in hard.

Chaos coils in her muscles. Her whole body burns. She can't figure it out, how to be within it; she wants to set her teeth into him, rend him apart, make him feel this terrible, encompassing ache she can't assuage.

It happens without warning. There's no point of origin, no one place it begins. Something detonates, shock waves ripple, and Vic's lit up electric, awash in the bright flash of an orgasm like sheet lightning. She bites down on his shoulder in reaction without thinking, lost in it, in its strangeness. She uses their motion to roll them over, surging up to reverse their positions and force this back into a shape she understands. On top and in control, everything is familiar. She grabs onto the headboard, letting the sound and feel of the slap of her palm meeting wood bring her back to herself. This she knows. Eyes closed, she gives over to just her body, tries to hide in there. She rises and falls with single-minded focus, concentrating solely on the slide and stretch of his cock inside her.

Walt's hands don't push or pull at her, don't direct her movements; they just hold on, steady and sure, sliding up from her hips to her ribs to her breasts. Every part of her is raw and pulsing, reaching desperately for orgasm, but her frenetic movements ease in spite of herself. His touch is like a murmur in a crowded room and her body quiets itself to hear him.

She opens her eyes. On his face is a look so wonderful and terrifying that her heart gives a shocked little twist like a hiccup. _You are so dear to me,_ she tells him silently, the old-fashioned word coming to her unbidden. Her hand slips from its grip on the headboard and she brings it down to touch his cheek, to trace his eyebrows and nose, and smooth his messy hair. He kisses her fingers when she runs them across his lips, then pushes himself up on one arm to kiss her mouth. It nudges him just a little deeper inside her and makes her breath catch. She wants to tell him how good it feels, he feels, but his tongue is stroking hers and her hips are picking up the effortless rhythm.

He brings his knees up and she leans back to feel the strength of his thighs support her, trailing her fingers down his chest as she goes. His eyes trace and linger on her everywhere, making her exquisitely aware of parts of her body she never thinks about: the slope of her shoulders, the curve of her jaw, the way her chest expands as she inhales.

The phrase 'making love' has always seemed incredibly corny to Vic. She likes the solid forms of 'sex' and 'fuck'; they sound more honest. But now she thinks she understands the difference. She rests her forehead against his and slides her hands around his neck, rolls her hips into him, against him, with him. His eyes never waver even as his breathing turns ragged and shallow. He's still braced on one arm but his other hand slips between them and unerringly finds her clit. She tries to memorize all of it, every sensation, every breath, but the air around them is hot as a furnace and she's melting. He's melting her with his cock and his fingers and it's Walt and it's so good; it's so fucking good.

Her head falls back, too heavy to hold up, as she grinds down, panting, on those two points of perfect friction. Her world narrows to just him, just Walt, the strong, abiding center of it all, until the night blows wide and in the space between heartbeats she's coming hard, shaking to pieces in his arms.

Dimly, Vic registers slumping onto his chest like he's an island she's washed ashore on after a shipwreck. She's gasping into his neck, still trembling, as he eases them down to the mattress. The movements set off little aftershocks that make her clench around him, her body a limp sprawl on top of his. He strokes his hands along her back and kisses her forehead sweetly, but he's otherwise still. It's a stillness full of latent promise, like the charged air before a storm. She feels the tension in his thighs and arms, the short, rapid breaths that lift her cheek with every rise of his chest, the tiny pulses of his still-hard cock inside her.

It takes a moment for her scrambled brain to put it together.

He hasn't come yet.

_Jesus._

She begins nuzzling at his sweaty neck, sucking lightly on his scratchy, salty skin. Her arms still feel rubbery but she lifts herself up and plants her hands above his head so she can kiss her way along his jaw. Walt's mouth opens soundlessly beside her ear. His hot breath bathes her cheek and his patient, gentle hands tighten their grip to pull her down harder against him. A liquid thrill runs through her as she feels his hips pushing up just a little, like he can't stop himself. She doesn't want him to stop himself.

Vic lifts her head and kisses a downward path from his mouth to his chin to his chest; she grazes her teeth over his nipples and licks his ribs. His hands cup her shoulder blades, sliding down her arms as she pushes herself to sit up. The stretch of his cock inside her is just on the other side of discomfort now, but the look on his face as she cants her hips sends a fresh stab of pleasure through her pelvis. Slowly and steadily, she begins to lift herself up and take him back in. His lips are wet and his blue eyes are almost black. They squint like he's staring into the sun, the creases around them deepening.

A great well of tenderness opens within her. She wants to be so careful, to make this so good for him. She rises up until his cock is just barely inside her, then sinks down, rises again. Walt pushes himself up and pulls her into a kiss. Their mouths move together without finesse, sloppy and unrestrained. His hands slide over her ribs, her waist and hips. She cradles his neck, her thumbs skimming his jaw, kissing him and kissing him. He leans back, supported by one hand while the other roams her skin until it's clutching her ass. His watch digs into her flesh, the metal hot from his body. Vic rises and falls and rises until he's shaking and her thighs are burning. He breaks away from her mouth, wide-eyed and gasping, and says her name once, then again, like he's calling for her, like he needs her to save him.

And her heart is so full, her body so full, and she's smiling, it's so strange, as she watches the way his mouth goes slack and his eyes lose focus before they close. His fingers dig into her ass and he groans softly as he comes.

When his head drops to her shoulder she wraps her arms around him, holding his heaving frame and resting her cheek on his hair, filled with the purest happiness she's ever felt. The room and everything in it is bathed in golden light: the messy sheets, the pillows they never managed to make it onto, and Walt in her arms. He lifts his head with a smile that's soft, a little goofy, and blindingly beautiful to her eyes.

She loves him so fucking much.

He kisses her and it's blissfully sweet, the way water is after a long, deep thirst. With one arm still around her, he lies back on the bed, and Vic is abruptly aware of just how tired she is. There are things they still need to deal with—like cleaning up, because they're both sweaty and sticky and there's no way in hell she's spending the night in the wet spot—but all she wants to do is fall asleep. All she really wants to do is fall asleep with Walt and wake up with Walt and keep doing that, every day, for as long as they've got.

[END]

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**notes:** continuing my tradition (if two years can be regarded as a tradition) of posting one last fic before year's end, i finally managed to finish this monster. my greatest regret is that i couldn't work in walt's right hand curling into a fist by vic's head, because i fucking love that little detail. but it's out of her line of sight, alas. the title comes from the poem Desire by Joy Harjo because it was the first thing i thought of when i started writing this. i'm sure you can guess why. lastly, i made a gifset in honour of this scene which is totally unrelated to the fic, but you can see it on tumblr.


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